I know, not my usual foodie post. It has been a busy week including the big reveal of the giant lobsters painted for the lobster capital of Canada. I was kindly invited to paint a giant lobster for Barrington Nova Scotia. The beast was over 7 feet tall, I used many tubes of paint, and hours and hours of work.

We were featured in newspapers across Nova Scotia for our work. My lobster is named the log drivers waltz. Check out the newspaper article here.

Sometimes (ok often) I crave chocolate. I try my best to not purchase chocolate bars and junk on a whim when shopping. That’s the frugal in me who is to cheap. This recipe I stole from my mother in law and it satisfies that chocolate need. You do have to be prepared and fast for this recipe because it does harden fast.

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter

2 cups sugar

pinch salt

6 tbsp cocoa powder

1/2 cup milk

3 cups oatmeal ( I like to use 1 cup coconut and 2 cups oatmeal) Be sure to set the oatmeal/coconut aside in a bowl ready to use.

Lord have mercy, I am in love. So, I was messing around in the kitchen and ended up on a happy mistake. I thought instead of using corn syrup as I do in my barley candy recipe I’m going to use maple syrup and make some hard maple candies. Well let me tell you it failed wonderfully. I ended up with maple sugar candy that melts in your mouth. I used a pure maple syrup that I had collected and boiled down last year. I am sure any pure maple syrup will do the trick. And maybe store bought? But I’m not 100% sure on that one… I’ll have to try that next. My maple syrup is a light to medium colour.

My son likes a quick easy breakfast in the mornings, so I often do up a double batch of waffles. They are definately cheaper than buying them and all the boy has to do is pop a frozen waffle in the toaster. A couple of years ago my friend Jacquie bought me a 4 waffle, waffle maker, which makes my life so much easier than trying to make one waffle at a time.

This recipe is a double batch and can be split in half if you need to. this recipe makes 26 large waffles.

Ingredients

4 eggs

2 cups milk

1 1/2 cups water

1 cup oil

1tsp vanilla

1/4 cup sugar

4 cups flour

8 tsp baking powder

Directions

In a large bowl add eggs, milk, water, oil, vanilla, and sugar.

Mix well

Slowly add flour while mixing.

Add baking powder and mix well.

Pour into waffle iron and cook

Serve or freeze. I freeze waffles in large zip lock bags stacked on top of each other with around 12-16 per bag.